


Icarus

by honey_butter



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Gen, fabian has mostly equal moments with all of the bad kids, the fabriz is only on fabians side but its also not a focus of the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_butter/pseuds/honey_butter
Summary: He’d been happy. He’d been so happy.But that was the climb, Fabian guessed. The build up, the naïve racing to the sun. And you can’t have a spectacular fall without gaining altitude first.Or, an Icarus metaphor about Fabian's mental illness in junior year.
Relationships: Aelwyn Abernant & Fabian Aramais Seacaster, Fabian Aramais Seacaster & The Bad Kids, Riz Gukgak/Fabian Aramais Seacaster
Comments: 32
Kudos: 59





	Icarus

**Author's Note:**

> why can i only post when i am just absolutely bone tired. anyway. hello. this fic is inspired by (and named after) the song icarus by bastille, which you can find on my angsty fabian playlist [here.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0q9q03VaylwGX4BJE89ldo?si=Q6gDJMdmSFe_lxT3vieUSA)
> 
> fair warning if you missed it in the tags and summary: this fic is about mental illness and depression, so if that bothers you please don't read.

Fabian hadn’t always been like this. There had been years. Years and years and years of a golden childhood with skinned knees and skinned knuckles and aching lungs filled with an overwhelming happiness, a blanket of security. Cathilda was constant in her protection, his papa constant in his adventure, and his mama constant in her absence. He’d been happy. He’d been so happy.

But that was the climb, Fabian guessed. The build up, the naïve racing to the sun. And you can’t have a spectacular fall without gaining altitude first.

They barely last a week, him and Aelwyn. She’s yet another thing he’s built up in his head to an impossible height, otherworldly and unreal. The start of the end is when she comes over to his house alone for the first time, three days into their tentative relationship.

It’s awkward. He’s overeager, stumbling around and tripping over his words and clapping too loudly. She’s nervous, but covering that up with indifference, and it makes him stumble even more. They kiss anyway, because they’ve always been good at that. It doesn’t make him feel the zing, the spark that he now knows it should. It doesn’t matter.

They try again two days after that with him taking her to a cinema that’s too sticky for either of them to make it through the whole movie. And in two more days they kiss once, in the stairwell of Mordred Manor, and Fabian doesn’t need Aelwyn to push him away to know that this isn’t what either of them actually want.

“This isn’t working,” she says, simply. Accusatorily, even though he knows she doesn’t mean it like that.

“No. It’s not.” Her hand is still on his chest, and she isn’t pushing him anymore, but she still feels further away than she had in that prison.

“I don’t think I like you anymore.”

“Okay.”

She looks down her nose at him, and he takes a moment to think about how beautiful they look together: different shades of dark skin and platinum blonde and silver hair and sharp cheekbones and pointed ears. They can still be beautiful together, but maybe not  _ together _ -together.

“We should still be friends,” he says, and then winces, because he isn’t sure if Aelwyn thought they were friends to begin with.

Maybe that’s why they didn’t work. Fabian ignores the fact that he knows that isn’t right, ignores the wind whipping his face hard enough to burn his skin and rip the tears from his eyes.

She kisses him again, instead of answering, and removes her hand from his chest, and Fabian’s first great romance is over, just like that.

It doesn’t feel right to stay in her house after that, even though he’d gone there for Fig and not for Aelwyn, so he leaves for the Thistlespring tree. He doesn’t let himself think about how the wind from the Hangman is familiar, how he can’t really feel it on his face. How he’s gone numb to it.

Gorgug offers him a Monster and lays down on top of him like a weighted blanket when he asks. Fabian has to force the tears to his eyes, but it still feels good to cry, and Gorgug holds him as long as he needs. Longer.

“I’m sorry,” Fabian chokes out, his throat sore from the voluntary tears and scratching from swallowed screams.

“No, no, you’re fine. It’s still a loss, you get to grieve.” Gorgug slides his hand to the back of Fabian’s hair and pulls his head more securely into his shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Fabian doesn’t explain that he wasn’t apologizing for the tears, for the time. He doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for.

“I’m honestly glad that you came to me, Fabian. I mean, not that you’re upset, um, but that you felt like you could talk to me about it.”

Fabian blinks at that, eyes painfully dry now. “Gorgug, you’re one of my best friends.” He isn’t sure what else there is to say, what other explanation could be possible.

Gorgug just pulls him impossibly closer, his strangely soft hands kneading over Fabian’s scalp, “I believe in you.”

“It isn’t Spring Break anymore,” Fabian protests, but it’s weak and quieter than usual.

“That doesn’t matter. I still believe in you. And I’m here for you, Fabian, no matter what.”

The issue with a fall like this is sometimes, sometimes you manage to catch an air current and soar back up, only to plummet down again even harder. Fabian stretches his wings out as far as they will go and catches himself and sails right back to the sun, right back to failure.

_ I’m getting better, _ he can’t help but think, even though he isn’t sure  _ what _ he’s getting better from.

“Fabian’s depressed,” Tracker’s words from Leviathan, hushed but not quiet enough for him to miss them, like to dance around his brain when this happens. Depressed? He can’t be depressed, he’s smiling and laughing and dancing with his friends. He has energy, sometimes, and he isn’t  _ sad. _ Depression is for other people, not Fabian Aramais Seacaster. It’s both too big and too small a word, too daunting and too narrow.

Fabian can’t be depressed. Fabian’s  _ flying. _

“He looks like he jerks off to his mother,” Fabian says, pointing obviously at a Hudol boy with a too-greased mop of brown hair.

“Ew, Fabian,” Adaine says, making a face of disgust despite not looking up from her spell book.

Aelwyn shrugs, “I was going to go for overly eager to spend daddy’s money, but your’s works too.”

“Aelwyn, that’s not specific enough,” Fabian whines, draping himself over the sticky linoleum of the food court table. “You can’t just say something that applies to  _ all _ Hudol students.”

“Are you saying I’m bad at the game  _ I _ invented?” Aelwyn glares at him, but there’s no heat behind it, and he sticks his tongue out in return.

“Maybe I am.”

“Really, you two,” Adaine huffs. “You’re going to miss the fresh meat.”

Fabian props himself up on an elbow to see the group she’s nodding at, a huddle of mean-looking preppy girls that Aelwyn would have been the ruler of once upon a time. He lets her take point on these ones, but she’s just as loud as him so the girls leave the food court faster than they probably would have otherwise and ruin their fun.

This is something Fabian wouldn’t do with Gorgug and Riz, or even Fig and Kristen. The Abernant sisters are always game to bully random prep students at the mall when the mood strikes Fabian, even if Adaine pretends she’s above it all. If any of the others were here he might feel  _ slightly _ bad for the emotional damage they are undoubtedly causing, but they aren’t, so he’s free to roast away without burdening his conscience.

They drink slush puppies too fast and get brain freezes, and drag a complaining Adaine into all three of the designer outlets at the Elmville mall, and then go back to Mordred Manor to collapse in a pile and sort through their war prizes while reminiscing about the one kid they’d made cry with a particularly well placed barb. It’s fun and exciting and just mean enough that Fabian can’t stop grinning, can’t stop laughing, can’t stop talking so loudly that they get shushed by Sandra Lynn on five separate occasions.

Fabian can’t get out of bed the next morning.

He’d made it back to his house the night before—much too late to legally be driving at his age but since when has anyone in Solace cared about traffic laws? It’s a good thing, though, because he isn’t sure what he’d say to Aelwyn and Adaine if he’d woken up on their floor like this.

He goes back to bed until three in the afternoon when Cathilda wakes him with a soft hand to the back, a plate of kippers, and the information that his friends are in his living room. Fabian doesn’t have her turn them away, but he never comes down either, and he uses his limited spell slots to prevent anyone from coming into his room. It’s too much effort, so he falls back asleep again and doesn’t wake until the middle of the night when the sharp rapping of knuckles on his window drags him up from the depths.

“Fabian,” a voice from his window hisses. He knows that voice. He loves that voice, actually. He buries his head in his pillow anyway.

“Fabian. Fabian, I saw you move. I’m gonna come in.” Persistent little fucker.

Riz clambers through the window he definitely had already opened. Fabian keeps his eye closed, but he knows the sounds of Riz’s movements, and can track him even though he’s quiet. Fabian just wants to go back to sleep.

“I wanted to talk to you about something but… are you okay?”

Fabian rolls over so he’s facing the wall.

“Wow, okay. So that’s a no. I know you’re awake, too. Don’t pretend like you aren’t.”

Fabian manages a groan and folds the pillow over his ears, “Go away, The Ball, I’m not interested.”

“I know, but I’m worried about you now. Can I… is there anything I can do?”

Fabian just remains silent, an answer that doesn’t need him to open his mouth, to form words. A tiny voice in the back of his head tells him to say something mean, something biting, and cut off this interaction and all future ones. But he can’t come up with anything, and, even if he could, he isn’t sure he could actually get it out, energy aside. No matter what’s happening to him right now, what feeling he isn’t experiencing that he should be, he can’t bring himself to hurt The Ball. Not anymore. Not when it matters.

“I’m going to… I’m just gonna,” Riz doesn’t finish his sentence, but climbs into bed beside him instead.

Sometimes, Fabian forgets that Riz is a goblin. It’s not like it matters, really, and it isn’t like Fabian thinks there’s only humans and elves in the world, or whatever. But other times, his three foot nothing best friend is rolling over him and getting lost in the sheets of his giant bed, and Fabian pushes through the fog and the heaviness in his limbs and reaches out to reorient him.

“What’s going on, Fabian? You’re… I know you can’t answer, really, right now. But I just, I’m so worried.”

“Don’t be worried, The Ball. I’m fine.”

Now Riz is the one just staring at him. Sometime during this whole conversation Fabian opened his eye, let his pillow go, subconsciously unfurled himself beside Riz to give the other boy room to curl into his space. Riz doesn’t, though, just sits on his knees beside Fabian; turned to him and tracing his face with big eyes that flash reflective in the dark.

It’s quiet for too long and the heavy feeling is still pinning him to the bed, and Fabian lets his eye fall shut again. He’s still aware of Riz’s eyes on him, and he’s still heavy, a deadweight, jetsam waiting to be thrown, but he detaches himself from that, just a little bit, just enough to lean into the feeling of his friend, the sound of his breath.

Fabian isn’t sure how long Riz watches him, but he may or may not fall back asleep in that time. Riz tucking himself under Fabian’s arm, however, wakes him up again. His too-soft curls rest on Fabian’s bicep, where he’s shoved his hand up under his pillow, and his chin is tilted up so he can still watch Fabian’s face, his tail wrapped around Fabian’s midsection.

Fabian opens his eye and meets flashing yellow and green skin and perfect hair and an acne covered chin and Fabian is falling, falling, falling, wind whipping, dragging him down, pulling him into a sea of yellow and green, glass and teeth, jagged and biting and painful despite the fact that Riz is so so soft and Fabian can’t pull back, he can’t catch himself, his wings have burned off. He thinks he’ll be okay, maybe, if Riz is the reason he’s falling. He thinks that’s not such a bad reason to fall, not such a bad person to fall for.

He closes his eye.

He goes back to sleep.

But this time he’s wrapped around a small green boy who’s still watching him, still waiting, still searching.

Riz sleeps beside him for the rest of the night, for most of the morning too, and it’s a little better, to know that there’s someone there to catch him when he lands. To know there’s someone there, already cushioning his fall.

“You look like shit,” Kristen says, when he enters her room a few days later.

“Fuck you, too,” he says, and throws himself onto her beanbag chair.

“What’s up?” She closes her notebook, probably planning something for the church of Cassandra, and waves a hand in his face. “I’m serious. You really don’t look good.”

“Maybe I should’ve gone to Tracker instead. Or Ragh,” he complains. Because he’s good at that and it’s a distraction, an easy out in the form of an argument that would end this conversation before he even starts it.

Nevermind the fact that Tracker’s words have been playing on repeat in his head like a virus, a parasite. Something like that. Fucking inception, maybe. “Fabian’s depressed.” Shut the fuck up.

“Oh, so this is a gay thing. What, have you decided you’re homophobic now?”

“What? No. No, I, no.” Fabian drags his hand through his hair in a mannerism he picked up from The Ball and blows out a long breath. “How did you know you were gay?”

“Okay. That’s not what I was expecting,” Kristen says, cocking her head to the side before repositioning herself on her bed to more comfortably look at him. “I mean, there were a lot of things, looking back on it. I was always obsessed with my brothers’ soccer coach, and then everything with Tracker, and I just kind of realized that getting with a guy would be one of the, like, least appealing things that could ever happen to me. Also, I was, like, weird about not being gay, you know? Like it would be a whole ‘well I’m not homophobic but’ kinda thing where I would do or say something just to prove how straight I was.”

“Oh,” is all Fabian manages, quiet and in the back of his throat.

“Why’re you asking? I mean, you don’t have to tell me but, I’m here for you.”

“I can’t— I don’t… Gods, this is—” Fabian pulls his hand through his hair again, and then screws his face up when the gesture once again reminds him of The Ball. “I can’t say it. Yet. I don’t know  _ what _ to say.”

Kristen slips off of her bed, so that she’s sitting on the ground now in front of him, and pats his knee thoughtfully. “Hey, it’s okay. Really. That’s the first step. Recognizing it.”

“Oh,” Fabian says.

“And, like, even though you know it’s all okay and everything, it’s still a lot. The gay thing. Or the bi thing. Or whatever thing you have, I’m not going to assume. But, like, we’re all in the same boat as you. Van boat. Whatever. And that doesn’t mean your feelings are, like, less or more invalid than any of ours, I’m just saying you’ve got literally everyone on your side.”

“Thanks, Kristen. That was actually kind of inspiring,” he says.

And it was, so why does his chest still ache like this? He thought he could solve the issue, whatever issue it is, by fixing his Riz Problem. His gay thing. Or bi thing. He doesn’t know yet either. He doesn’t even know if he’s not straight, if that night in his bed wasn’t just a tangle of emotions, if he’d really been having a bro moment with his dude or if it was this second thing growing in his chest, all warm and hot to the touch, that had stolen the breath from him.

It doesn’t overshadow his other problem, though, his darker problem. The problem he’s resolutely not calling depression but can’t really think of any other word to describe it with.

“Fabian’s depressed.”

He’s not, he’s just kind of fucked up right now. He’s not, he’s just had a bad couple of days. He’s not, he’s talking to his friend right now, he  _ sought out _ his friend for help. A depressed person doesn’t do that. A depressed person sits in bed and cries all day. A depressed person has his friends in his house and can’t bring himself to see them and then has a gay crisis when one of those friends decides to climb through his window in the middle of the night to check on him but doesn’t do anything about said gay crisis because he has no more energy. Where did all of his energy go?

“Fabian?” Kristen asks, flicking him on the forehead. “You okay?”

When will people stop asking him if he’s okay?

“Yes, yeah, just thinking.”

“Oh, okay. Anyway, I was saying, you should talk to Jawbone. If you want. He’s really smart, and good at this kind of stuff, and you might feel more comfortable telling him the specifics.”

“Thanks, Kristen,” Fabian smiles, a little sad. His smiles have been a little sad for a while now. “You’re really smart, too.”

She just laughs him off, and shrugs, “I’m not, compared to the others. But I do like to think of myself as a gay guru so if you ever need help with your whole crisis, I’m here for you.”

Fabian takes it as an ending to that specific conversation, and changes the subject with thinly veiled relief. Kristen lets him talk about bloodrush, and he listens to her ramble about the problems about organizing a religion that’s inherently unorganized, and he’s happy. He hasn’t had an issue with being happy.

The wind pulls screams from his mouth and redirects Kristen’s words from his ears. The rush of air makes it hard to think. Hard to function. He’s so  _ sick _ of functioning. So sick of it he’s almost excited for the final, sickening crash of a landing. At least he’ll go out the way he lived, larger than life and with a bang.

His wings don’t work anymore.

He doesn’t want them to.

Funnily enough, it’s Fig who first brings it up directly to him. The others have skirted around the subject, have asked him to confirm their suspicions, and he’s made sure to avoid or redirect every time. Fig corners him at the counter of Basrar’s, probably not the best spot, but, well, it’s Fig. She isn’t perfect. None of them are. None of them know how to do this.

“Hey, man,” she sidles up to him, horn rings glinting.

“Uh, hi.”

“So,” she starts, in that Fig way that lets you know you’d better buckle in and shut up, “I’m not gonna tell you how you’re feeling. I’m not even gonna tell you what I  _ think _ you’re feeling, because I don’t want to invalidate anything and I don’t know the whole picture. But you’ve got to talk to Jawbone.”

Fabian’s heart leaps into his throat, and he has to blink a few times to get his bearings. Deflect, deflect, deflect. “Is this the,” he swallows, lowers his voice, “is this the gay thing? Because you should tell Kristen I don’t appreciate her spilling.”

“What?” Fig asks, “No, this isn’t the gay thing. Wait, there’s a gay thing?”

Fabian laughs, a bit pained, “Well—”

“Actually, no, we’re not gonna change the subject. You need to talk to Jawbone because you’ve been off lately, and I’m worried about you. We’re all worried about you. And we can’t give you the support you need.”

Fabian laughs again, wishing the line in front of them would move faster so he can get his ice cream and leave this conversation. It sounds even more fake than the first one, and he cringes outwardly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m doing perfectly fine.”

“Like I said, I’m not gonna tell you how you feel. But I need you to at least talk to him. Please. Even if you’re totally fine! It doesn’t hurt anything to chat.” The line shifts and Fig reaches the counter. She shoots him another look, and squeezes his arm, and says, “Think about it,” before turning to Basrar and placing their orders.

It takes three weeks, but Fabian does think about it. He goes through one more catch and one more plummet and as he’s hurtling for the ground he decides he’s done. He doesn’t want to fall anymore. He doesn’t want to not care that he’s falling.

“Hey, kiddo,” Jawbone says when he sees Fabian lurking in the doorway of his kitchen. “You want some PB&J?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.” Fabian walks forward, legs shaking slightly, and slides into one of the bar stools at the counter he helped Sandra Lynn set up.

Jawbone takes out extra bread and starts to make the sandwiches, looking down at his hands as he works, “So, what’s up?”

“I’m, uh…” Fabian trails off, unsure of how to finish that sentence.

Two words. “Fabian’s depressed.” Then arguing between his friends, insisting that he wasn’t. And maybe he wasn’t then, maybe that had been just a string of bad days, but now… 

“I’m not well,” he settles on, deciding to watch Jawbone make the sandwiches too, instead of looking at his face. “I’m, uh, I’m not  _ sick _ but I’m… I decided I needed help.”

Jawbone lets the air breathe for a second in a long, thoughtful pause, and then he cuts the sandwich and slides it across the counter to Fabian. “I’m proud of you for reaching out, kiddo, I know how hard that can be. Talk to me about it?”

Fabian takes a bite of his sandwich.

And Fabian does.

He’s still falling. A couple talks a week and a few tries at different medications can’t fix everything. There’s still days when the wind roars so loud he can’t hear himself think, days when the most he can do is blink incoherently up at Cathilda or Riz or Kristen or Aelwyn. And he hasn’t quite managed to hit the highs of before, the sunlight that burned too hot, but he’s managing, and sometimes there are days where he has just the right amount of energy, just the right amount of smiles and laughter to avoid the plummet. To last.

And that energy lets him sit down, lets him think. He figures out it  _ is _ a gay thing. For sure. There’s an outside chance it’s actually a bi thing, but that’s only, like, thirty percent possible, and he’s happy with those odds. The gay thing is also, specifically, a Riz thing, but that’ll happen when it happens. Or it won’t, and Fabian will remain happy and fulfilled for as long as he gets to keep Riz as a friend.

He likes to think his papa would be proud of him.

Hopefully.

His talks with Jawbone have really opened that relationship up too, how fucked up it is to regularly get beat to shit by your dear old dad. How fucked up it is to regularly beat him to shit back.

But that’s another issue that’s probably more suited for a pirate themed metaphor with an overwhelming drowning motif. He loves his dad, and he knows his dad loves him, and he’ll work it out. Soon.

Right now he’s letting himself breath for a moment. Breath as he soaks in the sun from a safe distance and pulls himself out of a bone-breaking fall. But not alone. Never alone.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked it!! i apologize if there are any mistakes, like i said at the beginning i'm really tired. as always, don't be shy to leave a comment and i'm on tumblr at [labelleofbelfastcity](https://labelleofbelfastcity.tumblr.com/) if you want to stop by. i hope you have an excellent day/night!!


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